Martin Conway (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We need to consider how we can educate our young people, and indeed our old people and all our citizens, to have a civic responsibility and a civic-minded approach, realising that we all have a part to play in the ambassadorial veneer of our city. It is desperate to see the attitude many of our young people and citizens have to dumping rubbish. If one goes down to Temple Bar any night of the week, not just Saturday, one will be shocked to see urinating and rubbish thrown all over the place.

The Government has a significant leadership role to play but society has a role to play as well. It is time we had a national conversation on how we can all play our part in promoting our city. I am sure Senator Norris would wholeheartedly agree that it is not just the great city of Dublin that needs to be protected and regenerated. Many of our beautiful towns, some of them old garrison towns, some of them towns that supported industry over the years and some of them with wonderful streetscapes and traditional shop-fronts, have the same need. My own town, Ennistymon in County Clare, is regarded as probably the premier town for traditional shop-fronts in the country, in spite of the national debate that rages about two buildings that have no architectural merit and should have been demolished years ago. Looking beyond the traditional shop-fronts, however, one sees many empty units.

The Government has a role to play in bringing forward a town renewal scheme, though absolutely not in the manner of the renewal schemes we saw during the tax incentive years.Carefully thought out, properly crafted and innovative schemes that encourage people to live and open small businesses in some of these buildings could be useful. It is time for us to have some sort of recovery. Hopefully, it will be a very good one and development will take cognisance of our town centres. It would break one's heart to go into some towns in this country and see branches of Tesco Express on the outskirts of the towns but nothing in the town centres. We do not see that in some of our European neighbours, particularly France and Spain. We see markets and small shops that are thriving. We are all under the European banner. I do not know why we always have to follow the example of England as opposed to following the example of our fellow European citizens in countries like Italy, Spain and France. I know the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Coffey, is determined to deal with red tape. He has taken the red tape relating to the scheme for building one-off houses by the scruff of the neck and is dealing with it but there is plenty of red tape that we need to look at across Government, particularly in the area of environmental health. It is amazing to go down the main street in San Sebastian. One can go into practically any small pub that might have one toilet cubicle and have some of the most amazing tapas that hands can create. Yet in Ireland, one needs four or five different forms of toilet before the kitchen is even built and the kitchen nearly has to be bigger than the restaurant. We are totally knotted up in red tape when it comes to food production. People were not dying from food poisoning 40 years ago. Yes, there was a certain amount of it and there must be care but people washing their hands and being careful will achieve the same result as having the swankiest toilet and kitchen facilities, open air doors and non-smoking areas. What good is all of that if a human being does not wash their hands?

It goes back to the point I made at the start. Citizens have to take responsibility as well. Small industry is tied up in red tape. We need to unleash some of that red tape. I agree that we should give citizens rights but they should be rights with responsibilities. We all have a part to play. Government is just one stakeholder, every citizen is also a stakeholder.

The motion is an inspired one. I watched the contributions in my office and felt an absolute need to come down and contribute to an important motion.